My students know I care deeply about them. They know I love to joke around and keep things interesting as we investigate topics they might find dry. But they also know I am waging a one-woman crusade against “fun.”

It’s not that I don’t like to have fun, it’s just that young people moving from high school to college and, ultimately, into adult life have to understand that achievement -- be it academic or career-related -- is hard work. And hard work is many things, like character-building, but rarely is it giggles-all-day fun.

Donald Trump and BuzzFeed are bickering. Consider it a lovers’ quarrel. These two were made for each other.

The president-elect recently used his first news conference since the election to label the 10-year-old website -- which has reporters around the globe and has been valued at more than $800 million -- “a failing pile of garbage.” Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary and communications director, set the stage for the assault by calling BuzzFeed “a left-wing blog that was openly hostile to the president-elect’s campaign.”